Command & Conquer: first contact
by Shafter
Summary: we were taking our first steps to other worlds, our ships fueled by tiberium. then we met the Federation, and our extinction. set post C&C3 pre-C&C4.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing having to do with the game Command & Conquer except the discs. I own nothing having to do with the Legacy of the aldenata bookseries except copies that I own. I only play with the characters in my own way and get only the comfort of creating a new story for people to read. My ideas however belong entirely to me.

All reviews will be read and considered. Flames however will be ignored out of hand. So to everybody out there who reads this, please push that little button that says "review" at the bottom of the page. Thanks for the reviews and keep them coming.


	2. I

"How many worlds does this make?" The dialogue took place before a wall-sized view-screen. The image was not one to make for happy conversation.

The aide knew the question was rhetorical. As the Ghin aged he was becoming soft, without direction. Yet powerful still.

"Seventy-two."

"Not including Barwhon or Diess."

"They have not yet fallen."

The answer was silence. Then,

"We will use the humans, and their mutant brothers."

At last!

"Yes, your Ghin."

Silence, a glance at the view-screen.

"That makes you happy, does it not, Tir."

"I believe it to be a wise decision, as all of your decisions are wise, your Ghin."

"But slow to come, late. Without decisiveness, without, what is that human word? 'Élan.' "

The words of the aide's reply were carefully chosen. "Had the decision been reached sooner, there, perhaps, would have been greater profit. Certainly the loss would have been reduced."

A long minute later the answer: "The profit will be greater in the short run, surely. But at what loss in the long, Tir?"

"Surely the programs have taken effect. The humans are controllable."

"So thought the Rintar group millennia ago."

"Those humans were half formed, brutish. They were unrefined and wild. The new races are much more malleable and well-adjusted to technological controls. They are minimally dangerous and after the invasion the few that remain will be grateful for any bone we toss them."

Another long silence as the Ghin stared at the view-screen.

"Perhaps you are right, Tir. But I doubt it. Do you know why I am allowing the human project to go forward?"

"If you think the premise flawed, I wonder, yes."

Silence.

"Why?"

"Guess."

A pause, a breath, then a longer pause.

"Because we will lose many more worlds without their aid?"

"In small part. Tir, we will lose all the worlds without the humans."

"Your Ghin, our projections indicate that the Posleen will fail if slowed to their current rate, they will senesce. However, we stand to lose two hundred more worlds before that happens, surely an unacceptable loss."

"Those projections are flawed as our projections of the humans are flawed. At the end of this era the humans will be the masters and the Darhel will be an outcast race living on the edge of civilization scavenging the garbage. And your human project will be the cause."

The Tir carefully schooled his features. "I . . . question that projection, your Ghin."

"It isn't a projection, you young fool, it's a statement."

On the view-screen a world burned, and a world glowed green.

Norcross, VA,, Blue Zone 10, Sol III

1447 EDT March 16, 2080 AD

Michael O'Neal was a design consultant and part time tour guide for newbies with a Richmond based design firm. What this meant in practice was that he worked eight to twelve hours a day with CAD/CAM, and snot nosed young engineers. When the associate account executives or the account executives needed somebody along who really understood what the system was doing, when, for example, the client group included an engineer or computer geek, he would be invited to the meeting to sit there and be quiet until they hit a snag. Then he opened his mouth to spit out a bare minimum of technobabble. This indicated to the customer that there was at least one guy working on their project who had more going for him than good hair and a low golf score. Then the sales consultant would take the client to lunch while Mike went back to his office.

While Mike had fine hair, he played neither golf nor tennis, was ugly as a troll and short as an elf. Despite these handicaps he was working himself steadily up the corporate ladder. He had recently gotten an unasked-for raise in lieu of promotion, which surprised the hell out of him, and other rattling noises had been heard that indicated the possibility of further upward mobility.

The office he moved into was not much; there was barely room to turn his swivel chair, it was right next to the break room so several times a day it was overwhelmed by the smell of snack food, bad snack food, and he had to install a hanging book rack for his references. But it was an office, and in a time of cube farms that meant everything. Someone in the background was grooming him for something and he just hoped it was not a guillotine. Unlikely—he was the kind of aggressive pain in the ass every company secretly needed. But he did have a window, a window that had a semi-direct line of sight to the nearest Tiberium processing area. He used it as an object lesson for newbies: "Look out there, do you see the green glow? That's our number one enemy in this company, because Tib eats metal and poisons flesh. All designs and projects that we are hired to do are sooner or later going to go out into the Yellow or Red zones to keep expanding the TCN, so make sure that it is not a death trap for the operators or god forbid the _passengers, _or the _cargo_; or you'll wish you were dead with them."

He was currently in a mood to kill. The overblown requirements on the newest client's design were slowing their design pace to a crawl. Unfortunately, the client insisted on the "little" pieces of tech that were taking up so much of their volume, so it was up to him to figure out how to reduce it.

He sat with his feet propped on his overloaded desk, gripping and releasing a torsional hand exerciser as he stared up at the "Tick" poster on his ceiling and thought about his next vacation. Two more weeks and then it would be no work and all play._I should have gone ZONE, _he thought, his face fixed in a perpetual frown from weight lifting, _and become a personal coach. Sharon looks good in workout clothes._

He had just taken a sip of stale, cold coffee, thinking black thoughts of CAD surgery, when his phone rang.

"Michael O'Neal, Punishment Design, how can I help you?" The phone snag and stock answer were performed before his forebrain kicked in. Then he nearly spit out his coffee when he recognized the voice.

"Hi, Mike, it's Jack."

His feet slammed to the floor with a crash and Tiberium resistance for Dummies followed it. "Good morning, sir, how are you?" He had not talked to his former boss in nearly two years.

"Good enough. Mike, I need you down at Hampton Roads on Monday morning."

Whaaa? "Sir, it's been eight years. I'm not GDI anymore." By nearly Pavlovian response, he started to catalog everything he would need to take.

"I just got finished talking to your company's president. This is not, currently, an official recall . . ."

I like that little hidden threat boss, Mike thought.

"But I pointed out that whether it was or not, you would be eligible to return under the GDI Veterans Recall Act . . ."

Yup, that's Jack. Thanks a million, ole boss o' mine.

"That didn't seem to be a problem. He seemed to be kind of upset at losing you right now. Apparently they just got a new contract he really wanted you to work on . . ."

Yes! Mike chortled silently. We got the First Orion upgrade! The design was a plum job the company had been chasing for nearly a year. The account would guarantee at least a solid two years of lucrative business.

"But I convinced him it would be for the best," the general continued. Mike could hear other conversations in the background, some argumentative, some subdued. It seemed almost like the general was calling from a telephone solicitation company. Or several of his cohorts were making the same calls. Some of the muted voices in the background seemed almost desperate.

"What's this about, sir?"

The answer was met by silence. In the background a male voice started shouting, apparently displeased with the answer he was getting on his own call.

"Let me guess, OPSEC?" Any answer to the question would violate operational security directives. Mike scratched at a spot of ink on the varnished desktop then started working the gripper again. Blood pressure . . . . It was security and dominance games like this that had partially driven him away from the military. He had no intention of being sucked back in.

"Be there, Mike. The SigInt building attached to FORCECOM."

"Airborne, General, sir." He paused for a moment, then continued dryly. "Sharon is going to go ballistic."


	3. Chapter 3

Hampton Roads LOG Base, VA, Blue Zone 10, Sol III

March 19, 2080 AD

"Can I see some ID, sir? Driver's license? Service ID?"

I got up pretty damn early for this crap. Three hours driving separated his home in the Georgia Piedmont from Fort McPherson, Georgia, home of GDI's Forces Command. Perched just off of Interstate 75-85, the sonic fences and numerous steel composite structures hid a mass of secure buildings. Since it commanded all the combat forces in the GDIWest, its secure meeting facilities were top-notch but the press hardly noticed it. If a large number of military and civilian personnel suddenly congregated in Fort Myers, Virginia or the Pentagon it would be noticed; places like that were carefully watched but not Hampton Roads. Serviced by Hartsfield Airport, the largest in the United States, and covered by Richmond's notorious traffic, the only people who noticed the gathering were the carefully selected soldiers acting as military police. But, while the soldiers had been carefully selected, they had not been selected from the ranks of MPs.

"Thank you, sir," said the somber gate guard after a thorough study of Mike's driver's license, service ID and face. "Take the main road to a 'T' intersection. Turn right. Follow that road to Forces Command; it is a gray concrete building with a sign. Go past the main building to the guard shack on the left. Turn in there and follow the MP's direction."

"Thank you," said Mike, dropping the Beetle into gear and taking the proffered ID.

"Not at all," the guard said to the already moving Beetle. "Have a nice day." The GDI Commando in an MP uniform picked up a recently installed secure phone. "O'Neal, Michael A., 216-29-1145, 0657. Special attention Lieutenant General John Horner." For a moment the sergeant first class wondered what all the fuss was about, why he was wearing rank three grades inferior to his real one. Then he stopped wondering. The ability to quell curiosity was a desirable trait in a long-term Commando. Damn, he thought, that guy looked just like a fireplug, then dismissed him from memory as the next civilian car pulled up.

"I'd forgotten how much he looks like a fireplug." Lieutenant General John J. (Jumpin' Jack) Horner murmured to himself, standing at a comfortable parade rest as the Volkswagen puttered into a parking place. Over six feet tall and almost painfully handsome, the general's appearance was the epitome of a senior military officer.

Slim and hard looking, stern of mien, the only time he smiled was just before he pulled the rug out from under an incompetent junior officer. Erect of carriage, his Battle Dress Uniform fit as if, contrary to regulation, it was tailored. With closely cropped, silver hair and glacial blue eyes he appeared to be exactly what he was: an iron-clad modern scion of the Prussian warrior class. Were he wearing a greatcoat and jackboots he would slip unnoticed into the WWII Wehrmacht Oberkommando.

His twenty-seven-year career had been spent exclusively in Zone infantry and special operations. Despite having never attained a keystone desire, command of the Commando regiment, he was undoubtedly the world class expert in infantry tactics and doctrine. Furthermore, besides being an excellent theoretician and staff officer, he was considered a superlative commander, a leader of men in the old mold. In his career he had come across many characters, but few matched the squat juggernaut rolling across the emerald grass towards him. Horner laughed internally, remembering the first time he met the former NCO.

"Howarya, Mike?" General Horner asked, as the approaching figure brought him back from memory lane. He extended his hand.

Mike shifted the cedar box under his arm and took the outstretched hand. "Fine, sir, fine. How are the wife and kids?"

"Fine, just fine. You wouldn't believe how the kids have grown. How're Sharon and the girls?" he asked. He noticed in passing that the former soldier had lost none of his musculature. The handshake was like shaking a well-adjusted industrial vise. If anything the former NCO had put on bulk; he moved like a miniature tank. Horner wondered if the soldier would be able to retain that level of physique given the demands that would shortly be placed upon him.

"Well, the girls are okay," said O'Neal, then grimaced. "Sharon's not particularly happy."

"I knew this would be hard on both of you," said the general, smiling slightly, "and I thought about it before I called you. If it wasn't important I wouldn't have asked."

"I thought generals had aides to meet low-level flunkies like me," said Mike, deliberately changing the subject.

"Generals have aides to meet much higher level flunkies than you." Jack frowned, taking the opportunity to leave it behind.

"Well the heck with you then." Mike laughed, handing the officer the box of cigars. "See if I cough up any more Ramars."

Even while on active duty, Specialist O'Neal and then-Lieutenant Colonel Horner had developed a close relationship. The colonel often treated Mike more like an aide-de-camp than a driver. The specialist, and later sergeant, was invited to eat with the colonel's family and Horner explained many of the customs of the service and functions in the staff that would normally remain a mystery to a lowly enlisted man. Mike in turn increased the colonel's computer literacy and introduced him to science fiction. The colonel took to it surprisingly well, considering that he had never read it before. Mike took great care however in the subject matter, starting with the great modern combat science fiction writers to pique his interest.

After Mike left the service they continued to correspond and Mike followed Jack Horner's career. They had lost touch in the last three years, mainly because of a disagreement over Mike's career. After Mike completed college, Horner fully expected him to take a commission, and Mike wanted to work in weapon design and theory, while writing on the side. The colonel could not accept Mike's reasoning and Mike could not accept Jack's inability to take "no" for an answer.

Mike sometimes felt that a career in the Army might have made more sense than civvie street, but he had seen too many officers' lives strained to the breaking point by the demands of the service. When his time to reenlist came he got out instead and went to college. The pressure to take a commission, especially during the tough years when he was just getting started and after Cally came along had been hard on him and hard on his marriage. He had never told Jack but the implicit blackmail was what had caused Mike to sever their relationship.

Sharon had experienced the problems that he only witnessed. Her first marriage to a naval aviator had ended in divorce, so she had no intention of letting Mike go back into the service. His brooding on the severance from Jack, in many ways like that of a son from a father, had distracted him from a discordant note: Jack's rank.

"Lieutenant general?" asked Mike in surprise. The morning sun glittered on the five-pointed stars of the new rank. The last Mike had heard, Horner was on the list for major general. Three-star rank should not have come for another few years.

"Well, 'when you care enough . . . ' "

O'Neal smiled at the reference. "What?" He retorted. "Given your well-known resemblance to Friedrich von Paulus, they decided major general wasn't good enough for you?"

"I was a major general until four days ago, Chief of Staff at the Eighteenth Zone Corps—"

"EZC-O. Congratulations."

"—when I got yanked out for this."

"Isn't that kind of fast to get 'the advice and consent of the GDI Council '?"

"It's a brevet rank," said the officer, impatiently, "but I have it on excellent authority it will be confirmed." He frowned at some private joke.

"I didn't think you could frock—" Mike started to say.

"That'll have to wait, Mike." The general cut him off, smiling slightly. "We have to get you briefed in and that will take a secure room."

Mike suddenly saw a familiar face that made him sure the conference was about science fiction. Across the lawn, surrounded by a sea of Air/Navy black, was a prominent writer who specialized in naval combat.

"Can you give me just a minute, sir? I want to talk to David," he said pointing.

General Horner looked over his shoulder, then turned back. "They're probably taking him in for the same conversation; you two can talk after the meeting. We have a lot of ground to cover before then and it starts at nine." He put an arm around Mike's shoulders. "Come on, Mighty Mite, time to face the cannon."

The secure conference room was windowless but it was probably on the exterior of the building; there was noticeable heat radiating from one wall. Another wall sported a painting of an Mammoth tank cresting a berm, cannon spouting fire; the title was "Seventy-Three Easting." Other than that the room was unadorned: not a plant, not a painting, not a scrap of paper. It smelled of dust and old secrets. Mike ended his perusal by grabbing one of the blue swivel chairs and relaxing as General Horner settled across from him. As the door swung shut, the general smiled, broadly. It gave him a strong resemblance to an angry tiger.

Mike's scowl deepened. "It's that bad?" Horner only smiled like that when the fecal matter had well and truly hit the fan. The last time O'Neal had seen that smile was the beginning of a very unpleasant experience. It suddenly made him sorry he had given up tobacco.

"Worse," said the general. "Mike, this is not for dissemination, whether you choose to stay or not. I need your word on that right now." He leaned back in his swivel chair, affecting a relaxed posture but with tension screaming in every line.

"Okay," said Mike and leaned forward. It suddenly seemed like a perfect time to reacquire a habit. He opened his recent gift to the general and extracted a cigar without asking.

Horner leaned forward in his chair and lit the cigar at the former NCO's lifted eyebrow. Then he leaned back and continued the briefing.

"You and about every other son of a bitch who's ever worn a uniform is about to be recalled." The smile never left his face and there was now a hint of teeth to it.

Mike was so stunned he forgot to draw on the cigar. He felt his stomach lurch and broke out in a cold sweat. "What the hell's happening? Did we go to war with China or something?" He started to draw on the flame but the combination of surprise and trying to light a cigar caused him to choke. He put the cigar down in frustration and leaned forward.

"I can't get into why until the meeting," said the general, putting away his lighter. "But, right now, I've got a blank check. I can bring you in on a direct commission . . ."

"Is this about that again? I—" Mike leaned back and almost started to rise. The statement could not have been more inflammatory given their previous arguments.

"Hear me out, dammit. You can come back, now, as an officer, and make a difference working with me or in a few months you'll be called back anyway as just another mortar sergeant." The general extracted his own Honduran from the box and lit it expertly, in direct defiance of the building's no-smoking regulation. They had both learned the hard way, and in many ways together, when to pay attention to the niceties and when the little stuff went out the window.

"Jesus, sir, you just sprang this on me." Mike's normal frown had deepened to the point it seemed it would split his face as his jaw muscles clenched and released. "I've got a life, you know? What about my family, my wife? Sharon is going to go absolutely ballistic!"

"I checked. Sharon's a former naval officer, she'll get called up, too." The silver-haired officer leaned back and watched his former and hopefully future subordinate's reaction through the fragrant smoke.

"Jesus Christ on a crutch, Jack!" Mike shouted, throwing up his hands in frustration. "What about Michelle and Cally? Who takes care of them?"

"That is what one of the teams at this conference will be working on," said Horner, waiting for the inevitable reaction to subside.

"Can Sharon and I get stationed together?" asked Mike. He motioned for and caught the tossed lighter and relit the Ramar. For the first time in three years he took a deep draw on a cigar and let the nicotine bleed some of the tension off. Then he blew out an angry stream of smoke.

"Probably not . . . . I don't know. None of that has been worked out, yet. Everything is on its ear right now and that's what this conference is about: straightening everything out." Horner looked around for a moment then made an ashtray out of a sheet of paper. He flicked his developing ash into it and set it in the middle of the conference table.

"What gives? I know, you can't tell me, right? OPSEC?" Mike studied the glowing end of his cigar then took another draw.

"I can't and I won't play twenty questions." General Horner stabbed the conference table with a finger and pinned his former subordinate with a glare. "Here's the deal," he continued, blowing out another fragrant cloud. The room had rapidly filled with cigar smoke. "This conference will last three days. I can hold you as a tech rep, for a really stupid amount of money, for the conference, maybe a week. But that is only if you agree to take a commission now. Further, we'll be locked in for quite a while afterwards, maybe a couple of months and any communications with home will be monitored and censored . . . ."

"Hold it, you also didn't say anything about a goddamn lock-in!" Mike snapped, his face stony.

"Debate is not allowed about the lock-in so don't even go there, it's been ordered by the President. Or you can go home and in a few months get orders to report to Benning as a sergeant." Jack leaned back and softened his tone. "But if you come on board now Sharon will get the tech rep check in a week—I can disburse it out of Team funds—and after that you'll be making O-2's salary and benefits including medical and housing, and so on." Jack cocked his head and waited for an answer.

"Sir, look, I'm working on a career here . . . . " Mike twiddled the cigar and contemplated the top of the conference table. He found himself unable to meet Horner's gaze.

"Mike, do not kick me in the teeth. I would not have requested you if you were stupid. I will make this as plain as I can within the limits of my orders: I need you on my team." He stabbed the table again. "Not to put too fine a point on it, your country needs you. Not writing science fiction or making web pages, but doing science fiction. Our kind."

"Doing . . . ?" Then it hit him. The other writer specialized in naval sagas. Space naval sagas, not "wet" navy.

Mike closed his eyes. When he opened them he was staring into a set of blue eyes as cold as the deep between the stars.


	4. Chapter 4

Hampton Roads, VA, Blue xy, Sol III

1447 EDT March 19, 2001 AD

"Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Admiral Daniel Cleburne and for those of you who don't recognize me, I'm the Chief of Air/Naval Operations." The secure auditorium was about half filled with a mixture of uniformed and civilian personnel, mostly male. Something about most of the civilians made Mike suspect they had once worn blue or green. Apparently others besides General Horner had dipped into former commands.

"I was chosen to deliver this address to communicate the gravity of the information and because I could disappear more easily than the other Joint Chiefs. For the record I am currently in the Bahamas.

"As covered in your agreements, each of you should have already contacted next of kin and informed them that you agreed to be locked in for a period of two to four months. You are working with a former colleague on a secret project and you will be home soon. Please, in your future communications, downplay the severity of this situation as much as possible. That a project has shanghaied a number of civilians will, inevitably, come to the ears of the press, but the longer we can stonewall the core information, the better for the nation and the world. We prefer to release it timed and in such a way as to minimize . . . uncontrolled reactions.

"My wife hates the old 'good-news-bad-news' routine but here goes:

"The good news, for most of you science fiction buffs anyway, is that first contact has been made with a 'friendly', and yes they are 'friendly', alien species."

He waited for the muted reaction to die down. Most of the people had been playing the "what's-this-all-about" game and had reached at least that side of the answer. A few had guessed the rest. Now time for the other shoe.

"Bad news: they're in the midst of a multisystem war. And they're in what information we've managed to decode from the Tacitus."

This time the buzz of conversation went on for some time before he raised his hands.

"Please, we have a lot of ground to cover and not much time, so I'm going to make this fast and dirty. I want everyone to have a general feel for our goals and constraints. You will all be issued briefing papers," he gestured to a number of officers moving down the aisles and passing out files, "and there will be alien advisors," a stir started, "and technologies," and grew, "to draw on. _At ease!_ We don't have _time_ for this, people."

He referred to the papers before him. "First a little background. For the last hundred thousand years or so there has been a political entity, for purposes of translation we are referring to it as a federation, occupying the habitable planets surrounding Earth. They're all peaceful races, apparently, because all the warlike races had wiped themselves out before they discovered deep space flight. Except for the Scrin, obviously, who these new aliens have 'never encountered.' For those of you Sci-Fiers," he grimaced, "who have been pondering over the 'Drake Equation,' whatever that is, they're the reason we haven't been getting any mail. Until the Scrin, at least.

"About one hundred fifty to one hundred seventy-five years ago the periphery of the Federation experienced an invasion by a new race called the Posleen. This species is about as vile as anything you SF guys ever came up with. Basic information on them is included in the briefing papers and more detailed information will be on the planning team net. In general they are four-legged sort of centaur-looking omnivores that lay eggs. Their technology is about equivalent to the Federation's and generally similar in scope, but they don't seem to use it very effectively.

"However, being totally nonviolent, none of the Federation races have any history of conflict. In addition, they have some difficulties with engaging in or even discussing violence, even after having been in a war for nearly two centuries. They have only two races that are able to 'pull the trigger' so to speak and those races have some problems with it. Because of their problems, they have been unable to slow the advance of the enemy. They've tried to create artificial intelligence devices—self-willed combat robots—to handle the problem but after one disastrous experience when the robots tried to take over they outlawed that approach."

With the exception of the rustle of paper, the large room was now totally silent as hard-faced men and women started flipping through the explosive documents in their hands. Mike smiled grimly at the layout. The document was subdivided into categories: Introduction, Threat, Friendly Forces, Mission and Appendix. It was the most succinct document of its kind he had ever seen.

"The main friendly race involved in actual conflict, the Himmit, are cowards. That's not an insult; it's just the way they are as a species. If they think they've been detected, even suspect it, they break contact. The other race, the one we have had most contact with, the Darhel, are only able to fire once as individuals. Then they are turned into some sort of automaton by the very action of taking a life. The other two races, the Indowy and the Tchpth, are so totally nonviolent they have no capacity at all for violence." Mike flipped past the threat portion and looked over the information on the first alien races ever encountered. Whatever happened over the next few months, this conference was going to be interesting.

"So now, basically, the Galactics let AIs do the driving, push a button, automatically lose the button pusher and hope for the best.

"The best has not happened. They have lost over seventy worlds and the rate of loss is growing. They have some, really very little, success in space but are totally lost in ground warfare.

"There has apparently been a faction that has wanted to enlist the aid of humans for practically the whole war. The plan of this faction was to get the help of humans not only as fighters, but as weapons and tactics designers. Because of their lack of experience at war, the Federation has been copying the enemy when it comes to those areas, but the enemy is not exactly the most efficient group at either one.

"They, the Posleen that is, have one thinking leader to control around four hundred 'troops' that are not much more intelligent than chimpanzees. Their weapons do not have sights so they depend on mass fire, somewhat like a Napoleonic war broadside. And their ships are laughable, from a real war perspective.

"Since that is all the Federation had to work with for ideas, they use a tank that fires a sort of broad-area energy mine for ground combat. Their 'warships' are converted freighters." He snorted in disgust and looked over toward the mass of black uniforms. "I think we can come up with better, and so does the GDI Council and Central Command. You'd damn well better, or I'll have your commissions." There was some grim laughter but most of the attendees were listening with half an ear and flipping rapidly through their briefing papers.

"The idea of this conference, therefore, is for each team to determine the sort of weapons and tactics that they envision their country using for this war. Figure on not using any of the larger walkers we have come up with recently. Stick to tanks; and if possible try to revive the MARV concept but not for harvesting, that will now be a secondary ability."

"Now for more bad news. The upper level commanders, that is myself and some of the 'type' commanders, are going to have to hash out a few things. But there are some political and budgetary constraints that the Federation has on its military. Those constraints are going to cause most of the Air/Navy Force, Steel Talons, the Zone commands and elite Army to be absorbed by the Federation forces." One very long and ( in Mikes opinion, boring) briefing later: "And the final plans for spaceships, combat shuttles and space fighters, things related to the Federation fleet, will have to be agreed upon through a joint committee. Let me be clear about the bottom line here: the people who are coming up with the concepts for warships and ground forces had better get it right. There won't be a hell of a lot of review and they're likely to be what we're fighting for our lives with. Because that is the last bad news."

"The reason the Federation avoided contact before this is obvious: they might be trading one devil for another. That and our Nod and Tiberium problems. But, again obviously, this faction has gotten permission to enlist us. The reason they decided to contact us is basically, they are losing, badly, and they finally had to fish or cut bait. We're the next planet in line for invasion. Again. According to the Galactics four or five large invasion waves are headed for Earth. The first one will be here in only seven years. The following waves will be about spaced approx. 18 months apart after the first wave."


End file.
